


Conflict of Authority

by pasiphile



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angry Sex, Desk Sex, M/M, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:00:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1287046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasiphile/pseuds/pasiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for prompt: "Vimes/Vetinari, angry desk sex with the risk of being caught."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conflict of Authority

“No.”

Vetinari looked over his shoulder and gave him a thin smile. “I’m afraid to say you’re mistaken this once, Commander. The answer is  _yes_.”

“ _No_.” Something dark and ugly reared its head inside of him. “No. You can’t – ”

“I believe I  _can_ , Vimes,” Vetinari said sharply. “I am, after all, the tyrant of this city, and while that does not mean nearly as much as most men believe, it’s still my rule, my laws, my city.”

“Your city?” The dark something inside snarled in fury. “ _Your_ city?”

Vetinari turned to face him fully. He raised an eyebrow. The thing inside  _howled_.

Vimes strode forward and grabbed Vetinari’s robe, just beneath his chin, and pulled him close. “I gave half of my life to this damned city,” he hissed, “My blood. My _sanity_. So don’t you  _dare_ call it yours.”

Vetinari looked down calmly at Vimes’ hands. The implied threat was clear, and it was one that always had worked before: usually this was the point where Vimes would back off sheepishly, pretending nothing had happened.

Vimes didn’t let go.

Something crossed Vetinari’s face, his usual calm cold mask fracturing for just a second. Unease? Surprise?

“Vimes,” Vetinari said, and only bloody  _Vetinari_ could sound so calm and so threatening at the same time. “Let go and stand back.”

“No,” he said, and revelled in the brief shock on Vetinari’s face.

“Vimes – ”

“ _No_.”

Vetinari closed his pale fingers around Vimes’ hands and tried to pull them away. Vimes tightened his grip. Vetinari might be assassin-trained but Vimes had spent decades wrestling with criminals on the street; he knew how to keep hold of someone no matter what.

Vetinari tried to lever him off again but Vimes dodged, adjusted his grip, and somehow kept hold of him, even though Vetinari had almost thrown them across the room in their struggle.

They ended up grappling, pressed against Vetinari’s massive desk. Vetinari could throw him off without breaking a sweat if he got out one of his hidden knives, that much Vimes knew, and the fact that he didn’t, that he kept it bare-hands…

Vetinari tried to force his arm back and Vimes dove beneath it, hit his arm out the way. The struggling brought them almost nose-to-nose and suddenly Vimes froze, Vetinari’s pale blue eyes less than an inch from his.

He could hear noise in the antechamber, Vetinari’s next visitor waiting, no doubt. Drumknott keeping him occupied.

All he could focus on was Vetinari’s breathing, laboured. His chest moving beneath Vimes’ knuckles. He’d always thought of Vetinari as some sort of marble statue, a machine brought to life.

It was shocking to see he was human after all.

Vetinari licked his lips. “Vimes…” he said again.

He couldn’t read that tone. But there was something happening here, something shifting beneath the surface, something  _big_.

“No,” Vimes said.

Vetinari’s face twisted, as if in pain, and then he moved closer and he pressed his lips against Vimes.

For one moment Vimes really believed it was just another move in the fight. A bite, maybe, lots of street scrappers weren’t shy to use their teeth when it was needed; or some kind of poison on his lips, like those Klatchian queens you heard stories about.

But then Vetinari took hold of Vimes’ shoulder – holding, not trying to pull him off. Kissing him. Vetinari was kissing him, and the first thought going through Vimes’ mind wasn’t  _Sybil is going to kill me_  or  _I will never be able to look him in the eye again_  but  _gods yes_.

He pulled off, eyes wide.

“This is a fundamentally bad idea,” Vetinari said.

Vimes nodded.

“The head of the guild of Tailors is waiting just outside,” he continued. “We are on my  _desk_ , Vimes.”

“Yeah.” He nodded again, slowly. “Fine. Then why are you still holding me?”

“Damn it all,” Vetinari muttered, and he kissed Vimes again.

He couldn’t really explain why he didn’t do the sensible thing and  _ran_ , right now. But it had to with Vetinari being who he was, and the way he had once shouted at Vimes about being bought and sold, and how he had fought at the age of sixteen for a cause that wasn’t, strictly speaking, his, and even with that one time Vimes had been so full of righteous anger he’d told Vetinari to  _shut up_.

It was all that, and so much more, and somehow it all ended up with Vimes pulling at the Patrician’s robe in his eagerness to get to his bare skin.

And Vetinari was reciprocating, pulling at Vimes’ breeches and working his hand inside, those long bony fingers curling around his cock and he hadn’t been this hard this quickly since he was a teenager.

Vetinari kissed him again. Their teeth clacked together, clumsy, almost violent. That  _damn_ robe, all that fabric and, but then finally it was out of the way and he had his hand on Vetinari’s cock, hard and warm.

A tiny voice in the back of his mind was shrieking in him at terror. He didn’t listen. He felt a bit like that time the Summoning Dark had taken over, only this was something else – anger, yes, but also about warmth and having someone pressed closed against him and Vetinari’s mouth against his neck –

And this, this wasn’t that unfamiliar. The quick dirty movement of his hand sent him straight back to his youth, and the couple of times he’d visited a seamstress. It was clumsy, unrefined, and he couldn’t stop and that was  _Vetinari’s_ hand, on him -

Something wet spilled across his palm, just seconds before he came himself, fingers digging into Vetinari’s neck, more a chokehold than a caress.

Slowly the world came back into focus.

He was breathing very hard, too quickly. His heart was racing. Vetinari’s hand was still in his breeches, and Vimes was still holding Vetinari’s cock, now soft, but still warm.

And Vetinari was looking at him, his face a mask, dark eyes boring into his. “Vimes,” he started, and then stopped.

Vimes couldn’t think of a single word to say.

Someone knocked at the door. Vimes froze in shock, the outside world coming crashing back in one shocking wave. Ye gods, Drumknott. Ye gods,  _Sybil_.

But while Vimes felt nailed to the floor in shock, Vetinari had apparently woken up again.

“Just a minute, Drumknott,” he called out, perfectly calm, as if he had done nothing more strenuous and exciting than rearranging his papers. He pulled his own hand back, and then he took Vimes’ wrist and pulled it gently from underneath his robe.

He took a tissue from an inside pocket and wiped his hands. He cleared his throat, licked his lips. He went back behind his desk, sat down.

And he was back to being the Patrician. Nothing,  _nothing_ about him gave away what had just happened.

Vimes gaped at him. “ _How_ …”

“Readjust your uniform, Commander, you look quite indecent.”

Vimes stared at him, and down at himself. He quickly rearranged his breeches, the breastplate that had been pulled out of the way. Making himself slightly more presentable, although he was sure his face would give him away.

“Enter, Drumknott,” Vetinari said calmly.

The door opened. Drumknott drifted in, not sparing Vimes one look. “Mr Tuttle is here, your lordship.”

“Excellent, send him in, please. The Commander was just on his way out.” Vetinari turned to him and smiled. “Weren’t you, Vimes?”

Vimes nodded and turned on his heel, still feeling like he was dreaming.

“Oh, and Vimes?”

He turned around again. Surely he would say something now? Something to make this whole thing feel less bloody weird?

“It’s still a  _yes_ , I’m afraid.”

Or not. Vimes nodded and marched straight back out. “Difficult conversation, sir?” he could just hear Drumknott say, and then the door fell closed.

Vimes stared at the wall. Had he just…

Had  _Vetinari_ just…?

Had it just been a trick? But no, he’d seen that look in Vetinari’s eyes, for once all masks removed, and he – even  _he_ couldn’t fake that.

Vimes looked down at his hand. There were still traces of…

He stared. And then he turned and, for the first time in three years, he punched the wall, hard enough to leave an imprint.


End file.
